Tertullian

“ But even that very heir-loom [5] of your forefathers, which you seem to guard and defend with greatest fidelity, in which you actually [6] find your strongest grounds for impeaching us as violators of the law, and from which your hatred of the Christian name derives all its life—I mean the worship of the gods—I shall prove to be undergoing ruin and contempt from yourselves no less than [7] (from us) ,—unless it be that there is no reason for our being regarded as despisers of the gods like yourselves, on the ground that nobody despises what he knows has absolutely no existence. ”

“ There is, however, some consolation for your private household gods under these affronts, that you treat your public deities with still greater indignity and insolence. First of all, you advertise them for auction, submit them to public sale, knock them down to the highest bidder, when you every five years bring them to the hammer among your revenues. For this purpose you frequent the temple of Serapis or the Capitol, hold your sales there, [13] conclude your contracts, [14] as if they were markets, with the well-known [15] voice of the crier, (and) the self-same levy [16] of the quæstor. ”

“ But the gods, the more tribute they pay, become more holy; or rather, [17] the more holy they are, the more tribute do they pay. Their majesty is converted into an article of traffic; men drive a business with their religion; the sanctity of the gods is beggared with sales and contracts. You make merchandise of the ground of your temples, of the approach to your altars, of your offerings, [18] of your sacrifices. ”

“ Everywhere, in your public pursuits and private duties, antiquity is repealed; all the authority of your forefathers your own authority has superseded. To be sure, [4] you are for ever praising old customs ”